Altarpiece

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, churches in Spain were filled with arrangements of columns, entablatures, reliefs, and sculpture in an attempt to create a sense of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk,’ or total work of art. This concept was characteristically Baroque. The large and richly decorated altarpiece of the church at Medina de Rioseco is an example of this tendency. The altar was the product of a collaboration between two of the best known artists of the day, having been designed by Joaqu�n de Churriguera (1674-1724) and constructed in the workshop of the sculptor Tom�s de Sierra Vidal.